Miller, J. K., Todahl, J., Platt, J., Lambert-Shute, J., & Eppler, C. (2010). Internships for future faculty: Meeting the career goals of the next generation of educators in marriage and family therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 36, 71-79.

Eppler, C. (2013, October). Exploring the Intersections of Resiliency and Spirituality using Narrative Therapy Techniques when working with Adolescents and Adults. Presented at the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy National Conference. Portland, Oregon.

Eppler, C. (2012, June). Using Qualitative Assessment Tools to Explore the Intersection of Spirituality and Resiliency. Presented at the Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling Conference. Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Personal Information

It is a pleasure to be a part of the mission of Seattle University and its School of Theology and Ministry. I feel that my calling as an academic, specifically as a couple and family therapy educator, aligns well with Seattle University’s vision to educate the whole person, empowering leaders for a just and humane world.

I thrive in the culture of the School of Theology and Ministry and within the Jesuit-mission of the university. I am excited about our relationship and pastoral program, the opportunity to integrate clinical skills with spirituality and theology, and to be in a University that lives out a social justice mission.

Relationship & Pastoral Therapy is spiritually-integrated couples and family therapy. My passion is to work directly with students who desire to integrate the lived experience of faith or ultimate mystery (spirituality) with systems therapy in order to provide competent, effective, ethical, and compassionate therapy to diverse clients. I am not alone in forming students, and I am blessed to collaborate with colleagues that share a similar vision and passion.

My appreciation of seeing students grow and learn inspires me to teach. I believe that teaching, supervision, scholarship, and service are all about building formative relationships. Teaching is about building individual and group relationships to support the students’ knowledge and awareness of professional issues. Advising creates and deepens these relationships, helping to guide the student not only through the program, but also into the professional realm. I enjoy supervising and mentoring pastoral counseling practicum students/interns who become the next generation of therapists.

I seek to care for students in my courses by building a rapport. My teaching style combines didactic lectures and cooperative learning approaches. Collaborative learning de-emphasizes a competitive classroom atmosphere, instead increasing team learning and support. At the same time, individual student responsibility is stressed through assigning reading, writing papers, and participating in class discussions.

In both my teaching and my research, I work from a strength-based, faith-oriented, and narrative approach. My research interests have evolved and grown over the past several years. As a marriage and family therapist, I am interested in clinical treatment and intervention of children and families. I am curious about how families experience innovative interventions, and I focus my work on how therapists can work compassionately and intentionally with traditionally marginalized families, couples, individuals, and groups. I am a phenomenological, qualitative researcher. Whereas traditional psychology examines intra-psychic functioning, phenomenological and human ecology theories consider the influence of context and relationships while focusing on meaning, strengths, and resilience. My research and scholarship gives voice to accounts of resilience, using patterns and themes within these life histories to aid therapists in bolstering individual and family strengths.